One would not know how to describe the cricket match which took place at
Clyde Fisher school on Sunday, October 18 1998, between Valley Cricket Club
and San Jose Cricket Club. The former was the champion of the league
and the latter a powerful challenger. The best way is to start at the
very beginning. The day was perfect for a good day's cricket and it
was made better when lady luck smiled on Abrar for the second consecutive
time when the coin was tossed. Now Abrar had a serious problem facing
him. He has 11 excellent batsmen in his team with few of them who could
bowl. So he decided on the batting line-up on the basis of the performance
of the players during the previous day's "nets". Simple enough! Ali
had an uncharacteristic rush of blood with the second ball of the match and
he lobbed a simple catch into the hands of the extra cover fielder. Nadeem
who looked good during "nets" went in next. But his innings met a premature
end when he to played one into the hands of Peeyush off the bowling of Srikanth.
Naeem was the next batsman in. Both Naeem and Abrar maintained
patient vigil at the crease with both of them getting a crack at the boundary
on several occasions. Nadeem looked set for a big one when he played
a full blooded shot straight into the hands of deep extra cover. Nisar
was getting his timing right when an LBW appeal against him was upheld.
Nisar's eyeballs flew out of their sockets and he walked back in total
disbelief. All this time Abrar looked solid and was making batting
look easy. And with Altaful for company, SJCC looked all set for a
huge total with a healthy run-rate. But Abrar perished to the first
mistake he made, spooning a catch to Peeyush. Abrar walked back having
made a neat 28. Rajesh walked in to calm things down a bit but another
ridiculous LBW decision claimed him. He walked back with the same mindset
as that of Nisar. Altaf knew what the situation demanded and was trying to
restrict himself to just fours(he spanked 2 of them) but his patience wore
thin after a while. He went for a huge one and was gleefully caught
in the covers. Although the runrate was good, SJCC found itself in
a precarious position by losing too many wickets in quick succession.
Harmeet and Niranjan tried to repair the damage by taking ones and
twos and the occasional four. Harmeet tried to flick one through square
and was adjudged LBW. The batsman walked out without a word.
Niranjan was trying to make inroads into the Valley attack but he was
the last SJCC victim of the infectious "LBW disease". Four LBW dismissals
in a single inning? Phew! Ten out of eleven of the SJCC players knew that
Rubel is a champion batsman. The trouble is the person whose opinion
counts most did not agree; that person being Rubel himself. When he
went in all his teammates prayed that he should put that thought behind him.
And he did. 9/112 in the 28th. The stage was set. Valley
wanted to go for the kill little realising that they were up against a team
with 11 batsmen capable of opening the innings. Sultan and Rubel had
other ideas. Both started sending the Valley fielders on a leather
hunt. From then on, at any given point of time one could see a valley
fielder desperately trying to stop the ball from reaching the boundary or
to prevent a two. Such was the dominance of these two spirited batsmen
over the opposition. The brilliance of the partnership was in the fact
that the runrate was intact as both batsmen played genuine shots. The
witnesses of this unique phenomenon were watching with their jaws dropped(this
included the Valley fielders). If Rubel scored the twos and threes
Sultan scored the timely four. Sultan capped his fine stay at the crease
with a lovely pull off the last ball of the innings for a four and the scoreboard
read 9/176. Out walked the SJCC heroes holding the entire set of people
in the field speechless in wonder. No words would suffice to praise
the contribution of Rubel and Sultan. The valley cricketers walked
out trying to make sense out of what hit them.

SJCC began its bowling attack neatly, keeping the batsmen at bay. Rajesh
claimed the first wicket when he had Vamsi held behind by Abrar. Sriram
who came in next hobbled back to the pavilion when a vicious yorker from
Ali struck him on his toes. Satish tried to make his prescence felt
by playing a couple of big shots but perished when he tried it once too often.
He was held by Altaf at the boundary off Nadeem. Aswin's troubles
at the crease were ended by Harmeet with a beauty of a ball which swung in
and had the wicket in shambles. Ashok tried to approach the situation
with a balanced state of mind when the deceptive bowling of Altaf claimed
his wicket. Rajesh was bowled off a quicker one by Altaf. SJCC's bowling
often has this knack of hitting a bad patch when it is on top. On this day
it was no different. Peeyush who looked unsteady in the beginning started
belting the ball all around the park. The SJCC bowlers were helping
his cause by bowling to his strong spots. The required run-rate which was
around 4.6 during the drinks break kept falling rapidly because of Peeyush's
calculated assault on the bowling attack. He was scoring runs only
by fours and looked as if he would take the game out of SJCC's hands. Ever
heard of the word "Firearm"? It applied to Rajesh who came back for
his second spell and struck twice. His right arm was on fire(pun intended).
He bowled to deadly effect first disposing off Ashwini by bowling him
out and then the dangerous Peeyush who was held by a magnificent catch by
Rubel behind the stumps. Sriram came in with a runner but he did not
trouble him much as Ali sent his stumps for a walk. Thus Valley had
20 odd runs to get with plenty of overs remaining but with only 2 wickets
in hand. Ganesh was held well by Rubel behind the stumps off Altaf.
Srikanth was the last one in and surprisingly the game had an anticlimactic
end when Niranjan and Rubel caught both batsmen in a hesitant mood for a
single and it was all over. Euphoria, despair, joy, sadness - you name
it, the emotion was there in the field. Whatever comments beginning
with "What if ..." or "If only ..." was put into shade as the truth that
the better team of the day had emerged victorious. The SJCC members
walked to their respective cars paying tribute to the great Sultan-Rubel
partnership and feeling proud - proud that they were the members of the San
Jose Cricket Club.

Analysis/Summary:

The game was in SJCC's hand right from the beginning except for some unfortunate
dismissals. But things turned out well in the end because of mental
balance which was a vital factor. If the bowling can mantain the same
level of brilliance right from the beginning, SJCC can bowl out any team
between 35 - 40 overs without much sweat. One aspect which has improved
over the course of the past 3 games has been the fielding which is very good
news. As for the bowling and batting, things can be easily ironed out
during "nets".